Jon Stewart has also backslid a country mile since 110916: all the way back to his idiotic "Rally Against Whatever" days when he decided that it was the better part of valor to turn the whole thing into a mealy-mouthed, Both Siderist farce (from Crooks & Liars):

"The alt-Right/GOP views Muslims as a monolith. By lumping all Trump voters into one category, those who oppose him are guilty of the same stereotypical hate that the alt-Right employs so well. We need to tread lightly there."

The part about not viewing all Trump supporters as a "monolith" is true, but trite. Yes, not all of them have the same views. But the fact is, they all voted for a white "nationalist" (read "supremacist") who spouted many racist views both publicly and privately, and garnered the support of well-known racists and neo-nazis. The voters who ignored these connections are rightly held to account.

I was reading a very insightful interview with German philosopher Jurgen Habermas this morning when he dropped this little diddy that I knew you'd get a kick out of, Driftglass. Keep fighting the good fight!

"The only lesson democratic parties should draw as regards handling people who are keen on such terms is: they should stop pussyfooting around with these “concerned citizens” and dismiss them curtly for what they are – the breeding ground for a new fascism. Instead of which, we witness again and again the comic ritual, well-practised in the old (pre-1990) federal republic, of a compulsory balancing-act: Every time when talk of “right-wing extremism” is unavoidable, politicians feel obliged to point hastily to a corresponding “left-wing extremism”, as if they had to escape an embarrassment."

All Republican voters may not ostensibly hew to the same positions of Trump but the fact that they acquiesced to him ("endorsed") clearly means that they now own him and all his positions. Just like you can't have your own facts, so too you can't vote for Trump but not agree with him. Makes no sense. In any event, the vast majority of R's basically support most of Trump's positions, they just don't articulate them as crudely as he does.

This is dumb. Trump got about 60 million votes, just like Romney and McCain did, even though there are more people now. We didn't show up. That's why we lost. Obama got almost 70 million in '08, and 65 million in '12. The whole strategy from the nomination of Trump was to make the election so ugly and repulsive that enough of us wouldn't want to participate in it that they could win. And they did, not with some newly minted, must be paid attention to at our peril class of voters, but with the same ones they can count on showing up every time. Fuck pandering to voters who hate us and will never support us by watering down our platform for their comfort, we must figure out how to get our own voters to show up even in the face of massive, stupid, ugliness. Even in the mid-terms. Also, they cheat. We know they cheat, we knew a two million vote lead wouldn't win in the face of crosscheck and all of the other fuckery they lined up in the wake of the gutting of the VRA. And now that they won this time, they'll make it even harder. We don't get a level playing field, but we never really have had one. So this is our job now, along with making sure the Trump voters own his presidency, to figure out how to get all of us to show up and turn 2018 into 2006.

I awarded Jon Stewart the Silver Star of Centrism for the interview where he absolves George W Bush for having people tortured. From what I have read of the meeting where Bush was asked to approve said torture he was quite The Decider. Maybe I have the facts wrong, but he didn't say "Does that really work?" or "Will this cause more harm than good?" or even something more human like "My God, have we really come to this? I need to call my wife, or my priest, or something." Apparently he said, without hesitation "Hell yes."

First let me say, The rebranded naming of , KKK, White supremacists, bigots is ridiculously soft peddling its dangers when they get called, "ALT Right".Sure it is an accumulation of the very worst of humanity.

They got away rebranding the KKK and John Birch Society as Tea Party patriots.

The KKK got away with using the Bible to promote the religious image.

After the beginning of Obama's presidency the loud vocal hate mongering rose to the battle cry of the south Gonna rise again. The republican party not only aped it's message, all their monied funders and think tanks organized i everywhere you moved in the media ethos.GOP proudly displayed all this from the halls of our Government and the the public offices they held. Despite the Oath Of Office they took.

They are the same ideology that is party first. What party means at the moment or what billionaire buys the GOP title theme at the moment.Make no mistake, Democracy is in the way of a republican ideology that is own by great wealth. Be afraid, speak softly, do not disagree. From the political right that did the very same thing in the extreme with violence.This is really about very powerful wealth dismissing anyone or anything out of the way.Like an oil company that hires attack dogs to "convince" land and water protest concerns to see it their way.